


I'm A Fighter, Now Let Me Prove It

by EmotionalSupportPuma



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmotionalSupportPuma/pseuds/EmotionalSupportPuma
Summary: The nightmares had never truly left her, but after the horrors of Carnivora, they have returned with a vengeance.
Relationships: Lilith/Patricia Tannis
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	I'm A Fighter, Now Let Me Prove It

**Author's Note:**

> title is a lyric from the song "counting on hearts" by icon for hire!

The closing of eyelids was that of a doorway, shutting out the light and letting in the things that creep through the night. For a long time it seemed safer to simply keep them open. Until the paranoia and lack of sleep seeped into her brain and addled what little defenses Tannis had set up. For many years it was an unstable balance between waking nightmares and restless sleep.

Even now that she can find scarce amounts of comfortable sleep, the nightmares are a persistent clinging friend. They no longer plague the mind at every hint of darkness. There are some nights that she could forget they ever existed, curled up next to a warm body that Tannis had never expected to be so close to. But they have never managed to leave her alone completely. 

After the horrors of Carnivora, they are back with a vengeance. When she closes her eyes every noise is that of an enemy. Every shadow in the corner of the room is waiting to haul her away, to poke and prod and  _ torture  _ until there is nothing left of Tannis except a broken husk. She has been that husk before and even the absolution of death pales in comparison to that. When given the chance, Tannis is sure that she would never let herself be a prisoner again. 

But the nightmares weren't so easily dissuaded and they aimed to make that point at every possible opportunity. At night Tannis was a prisoner of her own mind, as much as she had ever been the prisoner of another person. The darkness held faces long dead, ones that could never touch her again, but they tore at old wounds nonetheless. 

This night they had the worst of grips on her. 

_ She was fastened to her own examination table, by tape that should never have been this strong. Pulling and thrashing and tearing. The bindings didn't budge, they didn't even stretch or tear in the slightest. Why were they so  _ warm _? It seared where they met skin, warm and hot and sweaty, why sweaty? The bindings refused to yield to her struggling, but still they dropped sweat from the effort. _

_ The panic sets in immediately. Bubbling and coursing and scalding her from the inside out. Fear that encompassed every fiber of her being. Shadows stretched from one side or the other, she flinched viscerally with each phantom swipe. She wanted to scream, but her throat was dry and cracked and aching like a sun-scorched desert. The words stumbled over the cracks and choked her, leaving Tannis to heave and cough and spit in desperation. _

_ Suddenly her Siren tattoos drew themselves on the left side of her body and lit up the little torture room Tannis was encased in. They swirled and danced and glowed as they came to life. Bright lights swarmed her vision as wings erupted from her back, a last attempt at freedom.  _

_ She was trapped, not even her Siren powers could free her, Tannis was going to die here, she was- _

She was thrust from a hard exam table to a soft mattress in the blink of an eye. The world around her was blurry and took several harsh blinks to solidify into something Tannis could make sense of. Hands pinning down her wrists, she twisted and fought to pull them away. Bright, ethereal wings that stretch out and knock against pillows and the nightstand. Then a face above hers, with tears of concern and worry running down the cheeks.

"It's just me, Patricia! It's just me." 

The words felt muddled and didn't make any sense at first, what was Lilith doing in the torture room? She writhed against the hold once more. With a final, vicious twist, Tannis broke free and curled on her side. Her wings knocked heavily into the body above her and sent it sprawling over the bottom of the bed. The only thing that broke through Tannis' foggy mind was the sharp cry of pain that followed. 

Like the sun breaking through heavy clouds, the clinging mist of the nightmares faded until her thoughts were clear enough to recognize her surroundings. Tannis struggled into a sitting position and tried to retract the ethereal wings. Miraculously, despite the intensity of her emotions and the effect that usually had on her Siren powers, they faded away into nothingness and the room fell dark once more. She scrambled to the edge of the bed anxiously. 

Once her eyes adjusted she could easily make out the shape of Lilith curled on the ground, cradling her wrist. Anguish pinched within her at the sight. It was simple to piece together what had happened, she'd been too far gone to realize who she was lashing out at. Shame-filled bile festered and sloshed around just beneath her throat. The nausea washed over her with the strength of a tidal wave and Tannis tottered to the side of the bed. 

Fighting back the urge to vomit the entire time, she moved over to the prone shape. Guilt and panic swirled into one beast, rearing its ugly head despite all of Tannis' best efforts to keep it under control. The lack of movement from Lilith made her heart rate speed up tenfold. Realistically she knew that the fall from the bed to the floor wasn't much of anything, she  _ knew  _ that. And that a dead person couldn't cry out in pain. Still the anxiety spiked as her brain began to spin 'what ifs', what would she do if Lilith had fallen at just the wrong angle? What if she had broken her neck?

But golden eyes flickered open when Tannis collapsed beside her on the ground. The sheer force of the relief made her eyes sting, watering and shaking in their corners, but not yet falling. She did not like to cry. Lilith rolled onto her back, but continued to clutch her hand to her chest. Dismay colored Tannis' face an ugly shade of red.

"Are you alright?" Lilith asked tensely.

"Why are you asking me? I hurt you."

The second statement was more of a broken whine. Tannis hated the way it sounded aloud, like a child just on the other side of a violent tantrum. Oh, how she disliked children. While her thoughts drift to and fro in their nervousness, Lilith just let her head thunk onto the ground with a sigh. It was sucked through teeth bared in a silent growl. Something between resignation and annoyance. The guilt stabbed her again.

"It's nothing serious. Shouldn'ta been holding you down like that. Bad call on my part, not your fault."

"If it's nothing, why don't you let me see your wrist?" Tannis frowned, voice skeptical and anything but the concerned tone she had aimed for.

Lilith grimaced, "Okay, it  _ might  _ be broken."

Heart sinking deep into her stomach, she reached out with shaking hands. It took every ounce of her self-control to help Lilith to her feet. The warmth beneath her palms was that of a stinging plant, sharp and all too much for her to handle. Yanking them away once they were standing wasn't an act of anger, Tannis' body just could not handle the contact in this state. 

"Hey, if this is too much for you, go hop back in bed." Lilith offered softly, forehead creased with concern. 

"No, I...I can. I just need-" She broke off and rocked from side to side, hands trembling fiercely, "Need my gloves."

"Are you su-"

"Yes!"

Her teeth clicked together painfully, an overdramatic finality to the word she spat out. Buzzing static danced around the edges of her mind. She flinched as Lilith reached out, jerking her hands away skittishly, but the warmth only squeezed her shoulder. The contact wasn't nearly as unbearable through cloth and Tannis found herself leaning into the touch.

Lilith pulled them together, careful to bump her nose against hair rather than skin. She could still feel the air, heat seeping through the messy tangles. Intrusive, but tolerable. A steady beacon reminding Tannis how to calm her scattered thoughts. Breathe in when Lilith does, breathe out when Lilith does. Lilith's wrist was broken, Lilith needed her.

With a final deep breath, Tannis moved to snatch up her gloves and slip them on. They were still in their night clothes and while she normally preferred for others not to see her so relaxed, there wasn't exactly time to change. The sooner she could patch Lilith up the better. She settled for donning her usual jacket and steered Lilith out of the room. With the hulking confines of Sanctuary III shifted into the night cycle, the halls were mostly empty. A custodian was mopping a corner, but didn't bother to even spare them a glance. Tannis was thankful for the apathy. 

On nights that she stayed in Lilith's quarters, rather than her own cot near her work, she had taken to leaving the Medical Bay open. She didn't always trust the average imbeciles around her precious notes and machines, but it worked out better that way. If someone injured themselves then they could bleed their way into a cot and pass out instead of all over the halls as they looked for her to open it. 

Now if Tannis was bunking in her own space it was a completely different story. The doors remained firmly locked while she slept, a habit born from lingering paranoia and distrust. That train of thought veered sharply to the side and crashed through the barrier that had kept her mind momentarily clear. Sensations from the nightmare bled through in her lapse of careful attention. Around her the walls began to close in.

She stumbled over her own bare feet and felt as though the cool metal below them had suddenly shifted into burning coals. As she reached out to steady herself, Lilith turned and tried to offer her hand. The second her injured wrist swung around she hissed loudly in pain. Tannis took a minute to squeeze her eyes shut and breathe deeply a few times. They made it the rest of the way without further disruption, as she clinically pushed the feelings aside and walked them off again. 

"Alright, go sit over there." Her words were curt.

"Not looking forward to explaining this one."

Tannis glanced over distractedly as she pulled over a machine that could x-ray the wrist, "What do you mean?"

"Can you imagine the shit I'll get if I tell people I broke my wrist falling out of bed?" Lilith snorted.

"We don't know for sure if it's broken yet." A short pause later she added, "And you were pushed."

"The details don't matter that much, it's the premise, you know? The others get injured in fights and their commander breaks her wrist in her quarters. It's pathetic at best and insulting at worst."

Tannis allowed silence to fall between them as she worked and waited to see the results of the x-ray. With a job to do it was easy to ignore the memories that haunted her mind. Seeing the confirmation of Lilith's broken wrist made her stomach flip uncomfortably, but she stalwartly shooed the guilt away and handed off an ice pack. From there she busied herself with preparing a quickly thrown-together cast that would work until they had the time and ability for something more serious.

As she worked to get it fitted the nausea crept around the corners of conscious thought. The skin of Lilith's wrist was bloated and a sickening mix of black and blue and purple as it bruised. As soon as she was finished treating the break everything came flooding back in before Tannis could siphon it off once more. Her hands clenched into shaky fists and she could  _ feel _ the bite of her own nails through her gloves, such was the force of her attempt to hold it together for just a few more minutes.

The lights around her bled together until it was hard to distinguish any shapes and her head spun. Dimly she registered the sound of Lilith's voice attempting to get her attention, but it had little effect. Anxiety shoved it's way to the forefront, flinging memories at her with a ferocity that made her flinch. For a moment the onslaught threatened to break Tannis and then, just like that, something snapped deep in her chest.

An anger that reminded her of the mindset from earlier. If given the chance Tannis would never be a prisoner of another again, that she knew with a certainty that stoked the flames. This-  _ this _ was just another way that those who had harmed her could continue to do so even from the grave. But she didn't have to be complacent in it, she was not chained to the memories. They were tied to her in the way a bad haircut was tethered to one. It would grow out, grow back, and Tannis would remember it, but she did  _ not _ have to suffer for it. 

Lilith's voice finally sounded in a way that she could understand and hear, "Come on, killer, that's it. Fight it."

"I'm not helpless anymore." 

"Nope, you're a fighter. Think you always have been."

"H-huh?" Tannis pulled her focus together enough to glance over at her.

"You've made it this far, haven't you?"

The words distracted her easily as her mind wrapped around the question with a cautious sort of curiosity. Answering a question was something of a soothing action for her. Tannis could logically cycle her way through memories, examining her own actions in the face of every trauma she had suffered through. And at the end of it there was only one conclusion; Patricia Tannis had  _ always been  _ a fighter. That she was here, around other people despite her aversion, was proof enough that she spent every day fighting. 

Peace seeped through her veins slowly, inch by inch. Coupled with another few minutes of controlled breathing, Tannis felt the panicky high petering down into something much more bearable. Lights softened in her peripheral vision and green eyes no longer blurred themselves into blindness. The weight that had been hanging over since she woke up lifted ever-so-slightly. She was strong, she was a fighter. A smile curled the corners of her mouth.

"I have, haven't I?" She said softly, more to herself than to Lilith.

The nausea that plagued her settled into a dull ache. It wasn't as though an anxiety attack could completely disappear with the snap of fingers, but Tannis could breathe without worry of expelling the contents of her stomach. Lilith smiled at her, with an amount of affection discernible even by Tannis' inexperience. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Hey, if you want some more peace of mind, I can teach you how to defend yourself."

Tannis wrinkled her nose, "Are you suggesting hand-to-hand combat? Lilith that's absurd."

"I know you don't like physical contact with other people, but it's not always a choice you have in a fight." She paused to raise her eyebrows, "Wouldn't you prefer to learn from me than anyone else?"

"I suppose, but your wrist is broken. It will have to wait."

Lilith grinned toothily, "We could say I broke it fighting you. Help keep people from bugging you if they have to worry about more than nosebleeds."

"At this hour?" She snorted incredulously.

"Hey, no one else has seen us yet.  _ I _ think we could pull it off."

She was distracted from answering as a strand of scarlet hair fell across Lilith's eye. After hesitating with one hand raised for a moment, Tannis carefully snatched it up and tucked it behind her ear. Her uncovered fingers brushed against warm skin and only caused her to flinch a little bit. Golden eyes watched her tiredly, from this short distance she could see the bags beneath them, the way her eyelids hung weighty despite their lively glimmer. Tannis didn't much feel like sleeping yet after the night she'd had, but Lilith was obviously exhausted.

As if prompted by the thoughts, Lilith broke into a yawn. Her heart thumped softly, in a way that Tannis had grown far more receptive of, as she smiled at her lover. It was easy to steer Lilith over to the cot that was usually reserved for absolutely no one other than herself. Almost second nature to pull the various covers over the curled shape, leaning down to press a quick kiss to her forehead without thinking. How far Tannis had come in her life, how much she had fought to get to this point. 

It was simple, juvenile even, if she stopped to consider it all. Love didn't fix trauma. Even time scarcely fixed it. But tonight Tannis could look around her and see clearly that through all of her effort, through all of her kicking and fighting and clawing, she had  _ grown _ . No, none of this had  _ fixed _ her, but that wasn't what she needed. Tannis was a fighter and that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Look y'all Patricia Tannis is so fucking strong and it's a damn shame that gearbox just keeps forcing her to be saved by other people rather than herself. As a note, I have been diagnosed with PTSD for several years now and I think a lot of people overlook that type of mental illness unless a character has been to war. So, a huge amount of my writing is about characters who I see some of myself in and want to explore their own struggles with PTSD.
> 
> Anyways, as always all comments and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!!! If you want to see more of my writing/shitposts my borderlands tumblr is tannithvibes!


End file.
